Teaching The Wife To Shoot…Ummmmm…

So, in the middle of July, out of the blue in the midst of some stressful goings-on in the summer, my wife up and says to me, “Do you wanna go shooting?” By the time I picked my jaw up off the floor, she already explained she wanted to start with some clay pigeon shooting with the shotgun. WTF??!?!?!!!! 12-gauge to START WITH?!?!?!?? I’m in LOVE!!!! Daddy married RIIIIIIGHT!!!! LOL.

You see, I’ve been fishing and into the outdoors for most of my life, and shooting firearms since I was 14 (covertly with neighbours and friends, as my parents didn’t want to let me), and firearms hunting with my own since just before I turned 30. Since then, I’ve bugged my wife once or twice a year – wanna learn how to shoot? She’s always shrugged it off. Her explanation? “You’re the cop, I’m the nurse – you hurt them, and I fix them. I don’t need to know how to shoot guns.”

So out of nowhere, this came up. Gladly, I made arrangements for her to try out the Benelli M2 Field and Remington 870 Wingmaster 12 gauges when we went out to some friends’ farm in the middle of July for a BBQ (the same childhood friends who I hunt deer with in the fall). Obviously, she enjoyed the Benelli M2 Field a LOT more, as the recoil / autoloader action of it made it a lot kinder on her 5’7″, 133 lb-or-so frame. And no pun intended, but she had a blast, and was a trooper in going through about 45 shots or so just to herself for a first-time shotgunner, and busted her fair share of clays (even with my buddy Scott saying they were gonna switch her out for me for being a better shot for deer hunting, LOL!!!)

Then, later at the start of September, she reminded me that she still wanted to do a “range day”, where she got to try some of the other stuff. So, a Springfield XDm 9mm and Sig Sauer P226 Combat 9mm pistols, a Remington 700 VTR .223 rifle, and a Sig Sauer M400 Enhanced carbine would be up for the task that day. A perfect sunny day, light breeze, and only about 22 Celsius. Five hours spent on the range, about 400 rounds gone through all told, and lots of basic hands-on proficiency (after some dry-fire safety stuff at home in the evenings prior to our range day). Amazingly, she seemed VERY comfortable with the Sig M400, being that AR’s / carbines are looked down at as “scary black guns” and assault-rifles (hey, they’re dangerous alright, but they simply are a tool at the disposal of whomever is holding it – but that’s a debate for another day), and did pretty well with the reactive targets (the last video was at the very END of the day, she was very tired, and had sore and tired arms at this point, LOL).

While it was only a very basic point-and-shoot day for her, her willingness to even trying it out was wonderful. After a bunch of weeks and months of very stressful stuff for both of us, we had a great time with that range day, and she was rarely without a grin that day. She kept saying too that one of the coolest things was constantly having a pistol loaded and on her for the day, that it was a “neat feeling”, both awkward and scary and powerful all at once. That it gave her a new respect for what I do at work and the responsibility and onus carrying a pistol has, that it made her acutely aware of that while it was on her hip (and she made reference to the awareness that we must have on duty when other people are around us).

All in all, some fun things to share with her. I think she’s hooked too, as she’s already asked about doing it again! Win!